Book 1
(analytical)

Activities of the human soul —
how the different activities are distinguished
from the essence of the soul

Chapter 1

Different human activities cannot be deduced without some understanding of the essence of the soul

735. According to the ancients, for whom the powers of the soul can be known only through its acts,(2) an even more general opinion would be this: 'Only the actuality of entia is directly knowable; only through actuality do we understand the potency present within entia.'(3) This explains the mistake we have noticed in philosophers who, in discussing the soul, begin with its powers, as something known, instead of starting from observation of its acts.(4) — Why, then, did I decide to speak of the essence of the soul before everything else?

736. While it is true that acts come to our attention before powers, they are not known prior to essence, which is known along with acts because it remains undivided in them. Indeed, although act and essence are known simultaneously, information about them follows a logical order in which essence is known first, and then, in and through essence, accidental acts (cf. 115). It is indeed an illusion to imagine that an act can be known without some knowledge of the ens of which it is an act, that is, without reference to its subject. We cannot perceive or know any act except as an entity, and must, therefore, either take it as an ens, a substance, or think of something in which and through which it is (as I explained elsewhere(5)). I have, therefore, used the acts emanating from the essence of the soul as an occasion for acquiring knowledge of the essence itself, although I had to speak of the essence as the first and natural foundation of every other psychological knowledge. This illustrates further the defect of psychological treatises which either omit all discussion on the essence of the soul, or deal with this essence superficially as though it were of little or no importance, or assert that it is nothing more than a word.

737. Authors of works like this also lack any principle which makes rational deduction of human potencies and faculties possible. Consequently such writers can offer only a kind of empirical, arbitrary, causal list of these potencies. No deduction is possible. Nexus and unity between the potencies as a result of their common origin, justification of their number, or indication of their intimate relationships is impossible. In a word, there is no science of the soul. Moreover, such writers lack any possibility of resolving the apparent contradiction between the simplicity of the soul and its innumerable potencies and operations.

738. On the other hand, the problem can easily be solved if we know that the essence of the soul lies solely in its being the first principle of the soul's operations (cf. 127-129), and that a real principle can have a single activity suitable for producing several effects (cf. 140-183).

But we also know that an ens, an entity or several entities can in-exist in another ens if the latter is of a spiritual nature. This is the opposite of what occurs in reciprocal relationships between bodies, whose nature is to be impenetrable. The discovery of this extremely important ontological truth is the result of direct consideration of fact through intellective observation which alone provides the first data of systematic knowledge. This also gives rise to teaching about individuality because a principle is individuated in virtue of the active, passive and receptive relationships it maintains with what is foreign in itself and, more generally, with its term (cf. 560-584). These true discoveries led me to examine the terms and foreign entities in-existing in the soul and constituting it in great part by individuating it. Having found what these entities were, and accurately described and listed them, I was in a position to explain how a single power of the soul could be multiplied by reference to the multiplicity of these entities, and thus appear multiple in its acts and effects without ceasing to be single in itself, that is, in the principle forming the essence of the soul.

739. As a result of all this, I found in the essence of the soul all the elements which occasion and divide its activities, all the germs of its potencies. I saw that the following entities, which differ from the soul but are intimately connected with it in varying intimate relationships, have their permanent seat within it: 1. ideal being, which is united to the soul through intuition; and 2. animality, which is joined to the soul through a fundamental, immanent perception. In animality itself, I distinguished several elements: 1. a sensitive principle, which itself contains foreign elements to which it is bound with its own relationships; 2. the extended, corporeal element which, with its immanent relationship of sensility, is contained in the same principle; 3. matter, that is, a power not acting directly on the sensitive principle, but on the extended, corporeal element which it changes violently and in doing so makes itself felt indirectly by the sensitive principle. Here, then, in the depth of the essence of the soul lie all the roots of human activity, and the explanation of the various potencies and faculties, which are distinguished through their roots on which they depend for their quantity and quality. This is how the human powers are deduced from the very essence of the soul. This essence, when examined thoroughly, furnishes us with the principle that permits their legitimate deduction.

740. Before going further, however, it seems necessary and useful to clarify the very notions of potency and act and, even before that, the notions of matter and form, granted that development of the soul is a kind of movement drawing it from one state to another as potency latent in the soul is activated. Another reason for dealing with potency/act and matter/form is to ensure that the imperfection of philosophical language does not, like dead branches on a path, hold us back or prevent those who accompany me in these laborious but delightful researches from going forward on the right path without losing themselves in inextricable ambiguities.

Notes

(2) A New Essay concerning the Origin of Ideas , vol. 2, 528.

(3) Aristotle, Metaph ., 9. - St. Thomas, In L. de Causis , lect. 6.

(4) NE , vol. 1, 47-64; Anthropology as an Aid to Moral Science , 567.

(5) NE , vol. 2, 410-412; 615-624; Sistema filosofico , 90-93.